The Art of Apathy
by TheExplosiveBubble
Summary: The first night in a new apartment, is Musashi trying to make a move...or are other things more important to his boyfriend? Musashi/Kotaro, 30kisses @ LJ prompt


"The Art of Apathy"

_#1 - Lilac_

Relationships required—as Musashi quickly discovered—the art of apathy. Before love was even contemplated as remotely possible between him and his eventual boyfriend, there was the constant strain of a one-sided rivalry and his own lack of interest. When love was tossed as a comical afterthought into the equation of rough makeout sessions and one-sided shouting matches, apathy—for Musashi—meant sanity.

Years passed as well as school, early life crises, career opportunities, job losses; yet, he somehow found himself still hooked arm-in-arm with his wannabe high school sweetheart. Sure, life seemed grand. Grand as the center of a tootsie roll pop. Grand as sleeping the morning away. Grand as having said boyfriend scowling at you from his perch between mountains of cardboard boxes.

Musashi bit his lip to keep himself from sighing.

"Yes, Kotaro?"

Kotaro's frown only deepened as though he expected Musashi to already know his predicament and a solution for this unknown problem.

"One of Aya-san's stems broke, and I can't find my shears."

Now, Musashi did sigh. After working for a full day and then moving into the new apartment all evening, he knew the hour was late, and the chance of finding something as small as shears in the piles of boxes and paper bags was slim.

"Just break it off, then."

Kotaro immediately huffed and turned, stomping away. Musashi could nearly see the steam spewing out of the smaller man's ears as he quietly followed his distressed boyfriend. Despite an intense frown and creased forehead, Kotaro gently and carefully placed the potted plants onto a towel near the large window.

"You can't just 'break it off', Gen! They're sensitive to that!"

Musashi slumped against one of the few spaces of wall that was unobstructed by any moving clutter. He was too tired to pay attention to any rant tonight, so his mind instead wandered while Kotaro cooed and fussed over his beloved lilac bushes. Snippets of _Aya_ this or _Toya _that or even _Miya _something bombarded Musashi's ears as he remembered the day Kotaro had bought his first lilac. The smaller man had nothing else to talk about except about the new plant—lovingly christened as Toya—and all of the research he had done on the internet at his university's computer lab, thus rendering his eyes a bloodshot pink.

Quirks tended to gravitate to Kotaro as though he was a freakish magnet of sorts, and naming plants as though they were his children was simply one of these quirks. (Musashi vaguely remembered past instances of Kotaro naming footballs and some of his combs, as well.) But quirks were the last thing he wished to deal with at eleven o'clock at night. He ran a hand over his face, cringing at the feeling of grime.

"Hey, Kotaro," he ventured to say. "It's too late to worry about this, alright? We can find your shears tomorrow."

"And leave Aya-san with a dead branch dangling from her?" Kotaro all but growled with that gleam in his eye that previously only appeared when he talked about his kicking.

Fancy how the lilacs changed everything.

"Whatever, Kota. Maybe your shears got mixed with the kitchen stuff," Musashi grumbled. "I need a shower."

On his trek to the cramped half-bath, Musashi could hear the other man cursing and growling some more as he clambered through boxes and sparsely inhabited drawers. Given time, the episode might be funny or cute even, but right now, all Musashi cared to think about was showering and sleeping. He yanked a towel from a lone box in the bathroom, and once he had the water at a pleasant temperature, Musashi stepped under the spray and took a deep breath of the steam. Eyes closed, he let the hot water massage his face, and he pushed all of his hair out of his eyes and off of his forehead, finally squinting for whatever bar of soap he might have stuck in there earlier.

But when one is moving, stocking the shower stall with soap is but a small priority.

He stepped one foot out of the stall and reached for the cardboard box across the floor, wet with the water dripping down his leg. Kotaro's grand supply of hygiene and hair care products lined the top, and although Musashi rummaged a little, his search for a simple bar of soap seemed futile.

"Hey, Kotaro?" he called to the adjacent room.

"Yeah?" A voice noticeably lacking the earlier venom called back.

"Mind if I use your soap?"

"Sure, Gen."

Well, problem solved. Musashi pulled bottle after bottle from the box until he finally found the words _body wash_ printed on one of them. He again ducked under the spray of water and snapped the lid open. As he squeezed a dollop of the creamy soap into his hand, a light, flowery scent attacked his sense of smell. He expected as much from his boyfriend, but Musashi still allowed himself a tiny cringe and opted to breathe only through his mouth. Nevertheless, the smell evened out as Musashi rubbed it onto his skin, therefore disappearing into a subtler scent of femininity. As the final suds slid past the metal slate into the drain, the man felt significantly better and felt much more capable of facing any scheme or tantrum Kotaro might pull. Rubbing a towel roughly against his hair, he walked back to the main room.

The plants were all lined before the window, quietly awaiting the first rays of morning light, and a small pair of red-handled pruning shears lay innocently by Toya. Musashi's eyebrow quirked, and he shot a look to Kotaro who lay in the edge of the bed, his head propped up on his laced hands.

Completely unbothered by Musashi's nakedness, he stated offhandedly, "I found them with the dish rags."

Musashi chuckled as draped his towel over a chair and sat down beside Kotaro.

"So, the world isn't ending?"

That comment earned him a halfhearted punch against his thigh. Nevertheless, Kotaro had calmed down, and the shower had stolen some of Musashi's lethargy. The larger man slid his arms around Kotaro's waist and pulled the lithe body against his. Exhibiting yet another sign of his cheered mood, Kotaro allowed himself to be moved and relaxed against the other man's warm body.

"First night a new apartment," Musashi said with a smirk before pecking Kotaro on the lips. "How does it feel?"

Kotaro glared a little at Musashi, but the look quickly melted into a small smile as he draped his arms around his boyfriend's neck.

"What? Do you want it to be an event?"

The smirk grew. "Maybe."

Musashi pressed a wet kiss near Kotaro's ear and then buried his face in the other man's neck, inhaling the scent from his skin—the same that had burst from the bottle of body wash.

"Hey, Kotaro?"

Kotaro's arms tightened around Musashi. "Hm?"

"What...scent is your body wash supposed to be, anyway?"

Kotaro pulled away to look at his boyfriend quizzically.

"Lilac. Why?"

The room felt very cold all of sudden, and Musashi broke completely from the embrace to flop onto the bed as he forced himself to admit defeat to the lilacs for one night.

"Gen?" Kotaro crawled over to Musashi.

"Please just sleep," Musashi said with a groan and an arm flung over his eyes.

"What's wrong—"

"Look, they won. It's okay. I don't care." Musashi lifted his arm. "Hell, if we have sex, I'll probably impregnate you with another one of those monsters or something."

Thankfully, Kotaro just gave him a look that spelled trouble for future nights, but at the moment, he just flopped onto the bed beside Musashi and said nothing. Musashi rolled onto his side, and unfortunately, the tree demon plants entered his line of vision. Somehow, they had to go. If Musashi had to convince Kotaro that they caused people to shrink or some other absurd concoction of a story, so be it. Musashi might have learned to be indifferent to many of the quirks that made his boyfriend who the loud man was, but when it came to lilacs—Musashi thought with a snort—apathy was overrated.

END


End file.
